BONUS POST: Where Are You Taking Me? (AKA the "But When" method)

Here it is, the bonus post. Earlier today we talked about setting in this post and right now, we're going to do a short rundown on plot.

One of the biggest reasons agents and publishers turn down beautifully written work is because the characters don't go anywhere or do anything. There's no external conflict. Nothing HAPPENS. What all this boils down to is - there's no plot.

Often, the easiest time to see whether or not plot exists is when you're writing a query. Here, you have a scant three sentences - a single paragraph if you're pushing it - to tell an agent why they should take on your book in their limited roster. Ideally, you should be able to summarize the main plot line in your novel in a single sentence.

When you do this exercise, it's very easy to discover if you've got plot or if it's sorely missing. If your sentence reads something like this, you may be in trouble:

Peasant Gretchen wants more than anything to be a knight, even though she's a woman, so she sets out on a quest to prove her bravery.

Okay, we know this story is about Gretchen, a peasant with lofty goals, but we know little about the conflict she will face. This story could easily get lost wandering in circles in the enchanted forest.

Instead, employ the "but when" method. Take a look at this plot line:

Peasant Gretchen wants more than anything to be a knight, even though she's a woman, so she sets out on a quest to prove her bravery, but when a dragon attacks her home, leaving her father crippled, she must decide between following her dreams or doing what is best for her family.

Now, we know the character: Gretchen the peasant.

We know her deepest desire: To be a knight.

We know the inciting incident: A dragon attacks Gretchen's home.

We know the conflict: She must decide between going home to help her crippled father or committing to becoming a knight.

What we also know is that a plot line exists - at least the beginnings of one - and most likely agents and readers will want to read more to figure out how this conflict resolves.


Try the "but when" method with your own novel in progress and see if you've got a plot worthy of publication or if you're still meandering around the same safe enchanted shrub.

Formatting Email Submissions: A Worksheet

Many literary magazines and even some agents are switching to sites like Submittable to handle their submissions. Those sites are great because it allows the author to fill in a form for general information, and then upload their story in a file format (usually .doc or .docx) so that the agent or editor can read it.

It's great for the author, too, because all their formatting stays firmly in place - all italics show up as italics, bolding is visible, and the formatting indentation of paragraphs stays secure.

Best of all, the receiving party doesn't have to worry about unintentionally opening a virus onto their computer because Submittable checks for bad omens like that.

However, a lot of magazines and agents still require that you submit to them through email with your submission in the body of the email. (Also so they don't download any nasty viruses by opening bad files.) This means that you can't attach a handy file. It means you must copy and paste your story (yes, even if it's 14,000 words) into the message box of the email.

Over the years, I've submitted hundreds of stories, poems, and article pitches this way. But even when you've done it a hundred times, it can still be boggling to know exactly how to format a submission for email. So, this week, I'm offering up a worksheet of my tried and true email formatting tips.

Step One: Highlight the text of your submission and right click COPY.

Step Two: Go to your email body and place the cursor where you want the submission to start (this is usually after a query letter or note of introduction to the agent/publisher/editor). Right click and make sure to select PASTE AS PLAIN TEXT.

[Note: Plain Text will remove ALL your formatting. This means no paragraph breaks, no indents, and no italicizing or bolding. Your submission will look like one giant text block. This is normal. Don't Panic. Trust me.]

Step Three: Go through your submission line-by-line. The spacing of text lines should be single spaced, between paragraphs double spaced, and no indentations anywhere in the submission. Basically, you want to format it just like this blog entry is showing up on your screen. See the single space between the line above and this line because they belong to the same paragraph?

And now, when I start a new paragraph, I add an extra space between them. Also notice that I did not indent the new paragraph because most email servers don't recognize indentation and will put funky alien symbols there in front of your words. Not appealing.

Step Four: Once the formatting is complete, go back to find all your stylized text like italics and bolding. They will appear just like normal words in the Plain Text version. You must place _underscores_ around the words like I just did. This translates to the reader that that particular portion of text needs stylization, whether it be italics or bold. So rather than saying that Sadie is such a bore. You must say that Sadie is _such_ a bore.

Make sense?

When all four steps are complete, you can go ahead and hit send with the knowledge that your email will show up in an appealing and legible fashion in any email, regardless of the server service.

It can be a bit time consuming and tedious, but when it's already so difficult to get published, isn't it better to take the half hour to format it correctly, then to have your wonderful story turned down because the editor got fatigued reading: ^#$@I%m in big trouble<%#$&* I said. ?

Homes in the Slush Pile

Author platform. You've heard the term, no doubt. But what the heck is an author platform?
It is not, unfortunately, a soapbox on which you stand to deliver your next reading and subsequent author speech. No, it is a way agents, editors, and publishers finally notice your work.

Let's think of this through a Texas state of mind. House number 100 in Texas is a giant castle with a moat and drawbridge. House 101 is a still large 3,000 square foot abode with a pool. House 102 is a little shack with a crumbling rooftop. And finally, house 103 is not a house at all, but an empty, overgrown plot.

If you had no budget from which to work with, and every house was up for grabs, which house would you take? Really. No restrictions. You can take any of them - they want you to buy them.

Easy, right? House 100. The giant castle. It's the biggest and the best. You might go for house 101, too, just to buy yourself a buffer zone, but they're the only two that draw your attention.

If you're an agent, this is what author platforms look like. House 100 is the big ticket author who has either published a bestseller or has enough online attention to do so soon. Even house 101 has done their marketing, sprucing the place up and making it the best house it can be on its own. Can it be bigger? Yes. It could be a castle. But only after major overhaul - which, in our case, is publication.

What about the other houses, you ask? Well house 102, our shack, is trying. It has maybe one poetry credit, a twitter feed, and maybe a short story about to be published in a friend's lit mag. It has something, but it needs a crap ton of work before anyone with an unlimited budget notices. And house 103, the empty plot, has nothing but a manuscript to its name. Nothing previously published, and no Facebook author page or blog.

Now, I'm not saying that no agent or publisher had ever chosen a really awesome empty plot based upon the manuscript alone, but isn't it better to have an eye-catching author platform so every agent that passes your query wants you as a client? Quite right.

So how do you make yourself into a giant agent snatching house? You have to work for it. How do you do that? You must commit to a few types of platforms. Create a Facebook author page, a Twitter feed, Instagram, blog, or website. Post from the POV of your protagonist, make sure everyone knows you're an expert on your novel's subject, and share your writing advice.

Then, you'll be the house 100 in the query slush pile and no one can stop you from publishing the next NYT bestseller.

Can you Query me now?

Let's talk about selecting which agents to submit queries to.

Querying may seem daunting and full of rejection (we've talked about this before), but when you think about it, so is applying and interviewing for jobs. So why should we treat it much differently? Only, this is your dream job and it's filled with words and not the expired coffee beans of your last barista job.

Now, think about what's most important in an agent:

1. Someone you connect with, who believes in your work and your career.

2. Someone who's willing to fight to get you the best possible publisher for your book at the best possible price.

3. Someone who can help explain this confusing, inter-galactic process of the publishing world (ie e-Books, novellas, literary, commercial, traditional print...).

It's not all that different from accepting an offer for a traditional 9-5 job. For that you look for:

1. Doing something you like.

2. Having a pay that makes the revocation of your free time worth the job itself.

3. Working with people you like, who understand you, and accept you for your strengths and weaknesses (and, of course, understand you have a life outside of their walls).

So, next time you're scouring that agent search site, try not to panic and send a mass query to everyone who represents sci-fi novels. Research your agents. Make sure they sound like the type of person you'd want to work professionally with. Is the agency in line with what you want for your book and your career? Is this a place you'd like to "work"? If so, submit. If not, you could be entering in to a professional relationship that isn't right for you.

Fitting a Swimming Pool in a Coffee Mug

It can't be done, right? Physics simply won't allow it. And yet, the synopsis requires that you do just that. Your novel (the swimming pool) has to be condensed to 1-2 pages: in fact, the lowest synopsis amount I've seen on an agent submission page is 3 paragraphs: which can often feel even less like a mug and more like an eye dropper.

So how do you accomplish fitting your entire, brilliant masterpiece into such a tiny space?

First, forget about subplot. Have an interesting father-daughter scene that unfolds under the main current of the novel's plot? Great! Don't include it in the synopsis. Tangents don't show you're a good writer, they show you don't know how to edit.

Second, limit your characters. Does your protagonist's brother perpetuate her loneliness by socially isolating her at school? Awesome! Don't name him in the synopsis. Providing every character's proper name from the novel doesn't provide depth, it confuses the reader because instead of focusing on one or two names, the reader has to remember six or seven who may only be mentioned once or twice.

Finally, remember cadence. As a rule of thumb, keep sentences short and to the point. Don't try and show off in your synopsis. It is less a showcase of writing talent (though you do want to put time into writing it well) and more of a showcase to agents that you know how to plot and you know where you're going with this story before they read the whole thing. Need help? For your first draft keep all sentences 10 words and shorter. Then, later, combine sentence for clarity and cadence.

Still intimidated by the synopsis? Try this technique---

Boil your novel's plot down to ten sentences. I repeat, TEN. No more. Only include what's important because you can't add more space - just like your one page synopsis. Then, expand upon these ten sentences enough so your plot has causality and makes sense, but not enough so it's cluttered.

Think you're up for the challenge? I think you are. If you keep in mind that simplicity is best, you will do infinitely better.

Editing and Queries and Synopses, Oh My!

With my latest revision of my YA novel done and the manuscript looking the best it ever has, my mind has turned from editing to the query and synopsis. Both daunting tasks.


To help you out in your future research, here are a few of the best sites I've found to help you with queries (and next week we'll tackle the fear-inducing synopsis).


Want the agent's perspective to queries? Check out the Nelson Agency blog: nelsonagency.com/pubrants   here, agent Kristin Nelson shares her current music tunes, publishing advice, and (if you follow the queries label) successful queries that won her heart.


If you want another agent perspective without the niceties of a Midwestern childhood, drive into the chum bucket at Janet Reed's hit blog Query Shark. queryshark.blogspot.com. View the archives, read mistakes and triumphs by other writers and even submit your own query for critique by the shark herself.


Finally, for great query advice, look no farther than Writer's Digest. writersdigest.com. Their bloggers and article writers write often about how to create successful queries, but what sets them apart is their "Successful Queries" series. So, check out the website and get your subscription - it will aid your craft.